I first met Collin Chesney nine years ago when I quit my nursing job and spent six months sitting in my apartment getting high. Midday Magazine was on at two o’clock, which was about the time I’d wake up. I’d take a shower, sit in my kitchen, pack a bowl, and turn on the TV.
Over the course of those six months I learned more than I did in all four years of high school. I learned about global warming and climate change. I learned about the economic problems stemming from the beginning of Guatemala’s peace process in 1996. I learned about books I would’ve otherwise never read, and still didn’t read, but at least I got a summary. I learned there is a country called Somalia.
I learned that canned tuna contains high levels of mercury and can cause brain damage if eaten frequently, according to new research by the Food and Drug Administration, so I stopped eating it. Actually, I’ve never eaten canned tuna due to a traumatizing experience in childhood when my aunt offered me some and I thought it was cat food. But still, Collin Chesney’s interview with Maureen Post of the FDA pretty much saved my life.
Since I had nothing better to do, I looked him up online, and I discovered that Collin Chesney was easily the sexiest man in the history of Fox News. The websites had pictures of him from an Esquire photo shoot from a few months ago, and he looked even more attractive than usual leaning against an anchor’s desk with his suit jacket undone, peering up at the camera mischievously with his gorgeous blue eyes. Then I found collinworship.com, where I immediately downloaded all the pictures, audio files, and video clips they had to offer.
Next I joined the Collin Worship message board. Most of the people there were pretty cool, though in my first week there was an argument over whether Collin’s hair colour was honey blond or honey ginger. But overall I was amazed at how nice people were. When I posted asking for a clip of Sarah McLachlan playing live on Collin’s show, someone had it for me in a matter of minutes.
The message board is where I met Tasha, also known as luvscollin69@yahoo.com. We had a lot in common: I was a certified nursing assistant who quit because I realized I don’t like being around sick people, and she was a psychologist who dropped out of school because she got addicted to pills. Every day Tasha and I would chat on instant messaging while Collin’s show was on, discussing what a brilliant interviewer he is, how he never lets people get away with sidestepping questions, and how, when he really likes his guest, he’ll let out this breathy little sigh when the interview ends.
Tasha was desperate to get out of South Carolina, and I was almost out of money, so I suggested she move in with me in New York, a city famous for being the place where Collin lived and worked. She showed up with a backpack, a buzz cut, a bottle of cheap vodka, and a Ziploc bag of Demerol. We made screwdrivers while listening to a week of Collin Chesney podcasts until it was time for that day’s show, where he interviewed an imprisoned Chechen militant via satellite. When he said, “How can you ever atone for the murders of children?” his normally soothing voice shook with rage, and I let out a happy little squeak.
“Oh my God!” Tasha shouted at the TV.
“He is so hard-core,” I said through a mouthful of nachos.
“I hate that Chechen guy,” Tasha said as she reached for the bottle of vodka. “I hate him and I want to punch him in the nuts.” She tilted the bottle over her glass and frowned when nothing came out. “There’s no more liquor.”
“Really?” I took the bottle from her and inspected it. “What are we gonna do?”
Tasha held up her left wrist and pulled down a mass of friendship bracelets and rubber bands to reveal a plastic circle imprinted with WWCD. “What would Collin do?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Interview somebody?”
Tasha took back the empty bottle and put it to her mouth. “Good afternoon. I’m Collin Chesney, and welcome to my show. Today we’re speaking with Anne Ostergaard of Long Island City. Anne, I understand you have a problem.”
I leaned forward to speak into the neck of the bottle. “That’s right, Collin. I have no more vodka.”
“Hmmmm, yes,” Tasha said in a perfect impression of Collin’s sympathetic hum. “And is it true that this problem is compounded by a similar lack of money?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Truly a dark day for all of Queens. So Anne, what’s your next step?”
I looked down at the bottle in front of me and shrugged.
Tasha shook her head. “That’s not good enough, Anne. The people of this country want answers. I’m going to ask my question again, and this time I expect a clear response. We have no vodka, we have no money, and the streets of the city burn with thirst and despair. Now what are you going to do about it?”
“Shit,” I said. “I guess I have to get a job.”
Tasha covered the end of the bottle with her hand. “Watch your language, Ms. Ostergaard. Luckily we’re on a two-second delay.” She removed her hand and spoke into the bottle again. “We’ll be right back with the weather and stock report.”
About a year after Tasha moved in with me there were three significant Collin-related events. First, Michael Musto wrote an article speculating that Collin was gay, which we thought would cause a riot online, but the only result was that the number of men on the message board doubled. Second, Collin’s show started an “on the road” segment, so every few weeks he’d report on location from some war-torn area overseas, like Mexico. And third, Tasha and I began organizing the first ever collinworship.com convention, a weekend-long party that we nicknamed CollinCon.
We ended up having fourteen people in our one-bedroom apartment for three days. On Friday night we mixed drinks and watched a tape of one of Collin’s recent “on the road” shows, where he covered the riots in Bangladesh. Collin was fearless, interviewing violent demonstrators and staying put even when the electricity in the area went out. When Collin was on the roof of his hotel reporting on the looting in the streets below, a firebomb went off right behind him, and for a moment the camera went black. Though we’d all seen it before, we still held our breath until the camera light came back on and we saw Collin smiling in front of us. Amy, a teenage girl who’d travelled from Pennsylvania, sighed dramatically when the tape ended. “Thank God that bomb didn’t hit his hair.” We all murmured in agreement.
On Saturday we took a field trip into Manhattan, where we stood outside Collin’s building for a few hours taking pictures of each other. It wasn’t hard to get his address; everyone online already had it, since he hadn’t made his phone listing private. Though we were sure Collin was at the Fox News studios and we wouldn’t be able to see him, it was still exciting to be outside his building, standing on the sidewalk where Collin walked every day, buying bagels at the deli where Collin might buy his bagels. We weren’t sure exactly which window was his apartment, but we think we might’ve seen his cat.
That night we all got wasted on Kahlua and played thirty-one with a deck Jim from Maine had made special with a picture of Collin on each card. Al from Brooklyn had sampled old Collin shows to make a rap song, and we danced to it over and over again. We bumped against the walls and each other until we collapsed into giggles, as Collin’s voice played over a thumping beat. “There are wildfires in Greece / And a cold front moving east / My guest is Hall of Famer Jim Brown / Today the Dow closed down . . .”
CollinCon became legendary, and we vowed to hold it every summer. As soon as a party ended, preparations for the next one would begin, with Tasha and I scouting out the best restaurants for large groups, making up our own tours of Collin-related locations, and saving up money to get a bigger apartment. We moved three times in four years, and each time we considered a new place we gave special attention to how many people could fit in the living room and if there was space in the kitchen for a keg.
One day I was answering phones in a real-estate office, a job I had taken only because the reception area had a TV, when I saw Collin come onto the screen, covering the hurricane in Florida. I immediately called Tasha, who was working at the Department of Social Services down the street.
“He’s standing right out in the middle of it,” I told her. “He’s about to get knocked over from the wind.”
“Oh my God! Is he protecting his face?”
Though the video was online later that day, Tasha was so mad about missing it live that she took a week’s vacation for the civil war in the Congo. Collin reported for three days from a refugee camp. On the third day he interviewed the US ambassador to the United Nations via videophone, and when the ambassador said, “We’re considering a resolution to send troops,” Collin shot back with, “While you’re considering, there are people dying here.” Then he moved onto a story about a woman who’d given birth in the camp, and when she placed her baby into his arms, Collin started crying.
“Please tell me you’re TiVoing this,” I said to Tasha when I called her from work.
“Bitch, I even got a backup VHS.”
Collin Chesney had that kind of talent. One minute he would be marvelling at human kindness during the aftermath of a tornado, and the next minute he’d be yelling at the mayor of New York for cutting funding for the arts. He exposed the truth about lead paint in apartment buildings, interviewed hot new romance authors, and showed the world the suffering in Third World countries, and he did it all while wearing tight pants and having really good hair. Collin was an inspiration. He was a hero. He was my gay public-radio cable-news boyfriend, and I loved him.
One night I came home and Tasha was sitting in front of the computer screen and crying.
“Did chesneychick@gmail.com say something to you?” I asked. “Everyone hates that girl. Just ignore her.”
“Collin has hepatoma. Liver cancer.” She put her hands over her face and cried so hard it sounded like she was choking. “Oh my God. What are we gonna do?”
My initial reaction was, obviously, to curl up on the ground and die, but Tasha had just quit Xanax, so I had to be strong for her. “Don’t panic. We’ll figure something out.” I took her hand in mine and gestured to her bracelet. “What would Collin do?”
“I don’t know,” she sobbed. “Get liver cancer?”
She was still crying when that day’s Midday Magazine began. Collin was so brave, never mentioning his suffering, still reporting on the suffering of others, like the teenage movie star who was photographed getting out of a car when she didn’t have underwear on. After he read the weather and stock report, Tasha put her head down on the kitchen table and started sobbing all over again.
“Listen, Tasha.” I grabbed the sides of her face and lifted her head up. “Collin’s done so much for us, and now it’s our turn to help him. We can donate some money to the American Cancer Society, and we can volunteer at a cancer hospital.”
Tasha sniffed. “The message board says he’s going to Memorial Sloan-Kettering.”
“Then we’ll go there too. We can work with other cancer patients. We can counsel their families.” I squeezed Tasha’s face between my hands, puckering her lips and nearly closing her eyes with the pressure. “We can see Collin in a hospital gown.”
We’re still volunteering there two nights a week and all weekend. Lately the hospital has been talking about offering me a job once the new budget gets approved. Though Tasha doesn’t have her licence, she can still practise as a therapist under supervision, and she does free grief counselling at the hospital every Wednesday night. When one of the doctors marvelled at our dedication, we explained that we know what it’s like to lose someone to cancer. We didn’t go into detail about our love for Collin, because it’s still too soon, and the emotions are too raw. Also, people might think we’re a little crazy.
But we never did get the chance to see our idol in a hospital gown. Today Collin Chesney is no longer with us. Today the tragedies of life continue, but no one is left to report on them.
So perhaps tomorrow we will speak for ourselves. Perhaps tomorrow we will be brave, as Collin would have been. Perhaps tomorrow we will wake up and listen to the news not to hear Collin’s comforting voice, but because we actually care about whatever it is that’s going on in the world.
But today we are silent. Today we have lost a brother, a son and a television personality. Today we mourn a fallen hero. Today it is 72 degrees and partly sunny in Central Park. The barometer is 29.8 and rising. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell two per cent to close at 9,539.
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